It's Time
by RoyalKlaroline142
Summary: After her encounter with Klaus in the woods, Caroline realises she must make a choice.


Author's note: Hi there! Though I read a ton of fan fiction (possibly more than is healthy ), I admit I'm not a great writer and rarely am I inspired to try. It's been many years since I tried my hand at Harry Potter and Twilight fics but it would seem that Klaroline has fi-red up a little creativity. Inspiration kept hitting me when driving and listening to my iPod so I've kind of jumbled together a (possibly slightly confused?!) songfic – different artists, different genres. Lyrics are in separate bold paragraphs with song name at the end so if you want to skip the lyrics it should be fairly easy to skim and find the actual story.

I kind of enjoyed my attempt at writing again, I hope you enjoy it and thanks for giving it a try. Obviously none of the lyrics or anything relating to The Vampire Diaries belongs to me, though what I wouldn't give for my very own Klaus.

Onto the story…

**It's Time**

Ughh, seriously, how many more times this week could the universe expect her to listen to Cheryl Cole's '**Hummingbird' **and its annoyingly relatable lyrics (not to mention a title that tugged at the heartstrings) without pegging her iPod into the nearest body of water? The idea was growing increasingly tempting as she lay staring at the ceiling of her childhood bedroom, flicking through her iPod and 'randomly' hearing songs that spurred her complicated mind always on towards Klaus. Her thoughts spun through her head, trying to make sense of the tangled mess of emotions she's been consumed by ever since that day when she found herself choosing to be in the arms of Klaus.

'_**All this time I've been running in circles, you were right behind. / I guess I could've met you in the middle, how come it never crossed my mind?' (Cheryl Cole, Hummingbird)**_

After too many sleepless nights and half-assed days, she knew the time had come to sort this mess out. Pleading exhaustion (a somewhat hollow excuse for a vampire, thankfully her friends didn't call her on it!), Caroline had escaped from the Lockwood mansion to mull things over in the privacy of her own home. She knows she needs to come clean to Klaus and eventually to her friends about what she really wants, so first she must be clear in her own mind. She must be honest with herself - just as she had promised to be with him - in order to decide what it is that she actually wants. Because ever since that afternoon her relatively ordered, albeit supernatural, world had been turned head over turkey. And it now appeared that her musical tastes were siding with him, ready to remind her of him should she so much as dare to think of anything but her world with him in it.

'_**Let's go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love. / We can dance until die, you and I will be young forever…My heart stops when you look at me, / Just one touch, now baby I believe / This is real, so take a chance and don't ever look back, don't ever look back.' (Katy Perry, Teenage Dream)**_

She knows she can't keep zoning out on her friends, snapping at every little thing no matter how ridiculous. When Bonnie had called her on her crap on the drive from Whitmore to home in Mystic Falls, she had realised that she could not let this issue eat away at her any longer. Bonnie's chatter had been overwhelming to Caroline's tired mind, her endless excitement on the drive at nearly being home, at catching up with Jeremy, Stefan, Matt…with Tyler…it was at odds with Caroline's conflicted feelings. Honestly, Bonnie's enthusiasm _should_ have been contagious. They were being given "a whole weekend of being 'us' again," according to Bonnie. Group consensus said it's what they all needed, despite the absence of the increasingly odd and distant Elena, to regroup and remember again what the world could be like without the destruction that inevitably trailed after Katherine.

But for Caroline the weekend plan was the very problem. All those people to see, so much to catch up on…except for the one person whose absence from Mystic Falls she felt much harder than she had expected. This isn't just about sex – though she swears she would give anything to quell this lust that never leaves her even in her sleep, which invades her thoughts even while she's trying _so damn hard_ to be a good student and a good friend, to live a life she's always dreamt of. She was craving to see him, to talk to him, craving to touch him, and to feel alive again. To just _be_ with him.

'_**So I would do it for you, for you, / Baby I'm not moving on, I'll love you long after you're gone. / For you, for you, / You would never sleep alone, / I'll love you long after you're gone.' (Phillip Phillips, Gone Gone Gone)**_

Of course, the words that had left her mouth after Bonnie's pep talk was an apology, implied acceptance of Bonnie's reprimand and supposed agreement for the fun ahead. It had made her uneasy, so easily telling lies again to spare the feelings of another. So why couldn't she spare his feelings, why did she always have to trivialise emotions that never came easy to him, emotions he knew made him vulnerable but he could never punish her for? Why did she have to make him feel like an object…a satisfied object, but an unwanted object nonetheless?

_Annnnd here we go again, Caroline, _came the snappish voice in her head. '_Thoughts always running in circles back to one person.'_

Funny how that voice was so like Old Caroline or Before Vampirism. Funny how it was so like her friends, so superior in the judgments it made on her actions. Like a reflex in her brain that wants her to never veer from the clear moral road of black or white, to never admit to the changes and feelings in her that scare her the most yet make her feel so alive.

But ever since that afternoon in the woods, Caroline finds it so much easier to win the arguments with that little voice. She can feel herself changing, learning to accept that what she feels and what she wants in life isn't wrong. She's beginning to realise she wants to be less selfless especially if selflessness comes at the expense of her own happiness. They are all ageless monsters and there can be no clear-cut morals when life is endless and you are ever changing. By necessity it must be a life that is morally grey. The Salvatores had known that much longer than all of them, Stefan had warned them there was little difference between Klaus and themselves. God, even Katherine was a beautifully messy blend of 500 years of sinner and saint. So loving someone with a dark past, to see the good in a damaged soul, to forgive but not to forget, to give and receive love…was that really so awful?

Caroline had spent a great deal of time – some might say far too much time - obsessing over all the evil he had done (and that was only the small percentage she was aware of). Not even a week ago her conflicted emotions had her forcing him out of her life after their lovemaking, pretending as though what they shared was only animal attraction and that the reverent hours he had spent with her meant so very little to her. Trying to ignore the pain she saw in his eyes that he had tried so very hard to hide at her goodbye…God, it had nearly killed her to walk away. But even when the voice in her head was trying to remind her of how wrong he was for her, she could never forget how surprisingly tender he always was with her, how much better a man he could be with her by his side. If she could be there to love him and show him a little of the kindness in the world, maybe he might just learn to control that temper and that ego of his, that cruel streak that too often showed no mercy. A long shot perhaps, but most likely worth the risk?

'_**Nothing is perfect but your imperfections are quaint, / And your love is worth it and for that I will wait, / And though you hate me, when you have a turn, / I drive you crazy but you always return. / If I fall short, if I break rank, it's a bloodsport but I understand, / I am all yours, I am a man, I'm on all fours, willingly down. / Loving you is a bloodsport, fighting in a love war.' (Raleigh Ritchie, Bloodsport)**_

College is draining when you feel yourself forever being pulled in another direction and it had been a long week in the company of her overactive brain. Caroline's mind is overtired and overemotional and still it's trying to unknot the tangle of her thoughts and feelings. Ed Sheeran's **'Give Me Love' **playing on her iPod has her bursting into tears, heart constricting at the sweet memories of their dancing. But from this crying jag comes the realisation that there is one glaringly obvious thought she can't help always coming back to - that, in her own brain, her feelings towards Klaus are no longer ambivalent or suppressed. Too often her brain is throwing out the word 'love' with such a sense of sureness that Caroline knows ultimately what she truly feels.

_Caroline Forbes LOVES Klaus Mikaelson. _

'_**If you were the window, if I was the rain, / I'd pour myself out and wash off the pain. / I'd fall like the tears so you're light could shine through, / Then I'd just fade into you./…In your heart, in your head, in your arms, in your bed, under your skin, / 'til there's no way to know where you end and where I begin. /…I was the ashes, you were the ground, / Under your willow, they lay me down. / There'll be no trace that one was once two, / After I fade into you.' (Sam Palladio & Clare Bowen, Fade Into You)**_

She wants Klaus. She wants to spend to time with Klaus; have long and ordinary conversations on the phone just to hear his voice; she wants to be a frequent flyer to New Orleans so she can see him and those adorable dimples that are so at odds with his harsh, kingly personality. And who is she kidding…she wants hot hybrid sex. Lots of it. Because frankly, despite his 1000+ years, that man has a body that can make a woman's toes curl just by looking at him!

Along with the warm feeling and settled mind that finally comes from her revelation, she sees also the magnitude of her self-realisation and ultimately the decision that must follow. Despite the shallow cheerleader act, Caroline Forbes is no fool. Maybe a survivalist who enjoys the land of denial, but certainly not a fool. Life with Klaus would be no picnic. Loving Klaus will never be safe or easy. But she feels with a sense of certainty, and she has utter faith in his feelings for her, in his constant battle to cherish and protect her against all odds and despite all she has put him through (no one was more surprised than her to realise that the big bad didn't hate her – or kill her – for playing him like a fiddle more times than he should have allowed!).

'_**I feel the 4 become 5, and I'm waiting, / For you to walk down the boulevard, And to take me. / But the moment you appear, you wake me, / Out of the slumbers of my head, from the slums of loneliness. / And there's no conspiracy, behind the way two hearts meet, when love is a two way street. / And I think I'm ready , to let you get under my skin…Love is a two way street.' (Kimbra, Two Way Street)**_

Knowing one small phone call will alter the course of her life irrevocably, that once he has claimed her there will be no going back, she finds herself anxiously dialling the number she had contemplated calling at least once a day since he had first left her after graduation. Hell, every time she sees her mini fridge her fingers want to reach for the phone!

"Caroline." She feels the warmth in his soft greeting, only for the coldness to quickly seep back in. "To what do I owe the honour? No need to reiterate the terms of our deal, love. I'm here, you're there. Both to our satisfaction, I daresay?'

She feels sharply his coldness, his involuntary display of hurt and vulnerability. To focus herself, she takes the moment to feel the lightness in her undead racing heart (she knows it doesn't beat anymore but she swears somehow his very existence always makes it do crazy impossible things). Her ears still picking out the songs that reflect her emotions as the music quietly plays on, she hears Sarah Blasko's **'Illusory Light'** fade out, a song that in her recent emotional state had her crying more frequently than she would like to admit over just a song. Fittingly, her sentient iPod selected next for her a song too freakishly reflective of her recent emotional battle with herself.

'_**And I wonder if I ever cross your mind? For me it happens all the time. / It's a quarter after 1, I'm all alone and I need you now. / Said I wouldn't call but I've lost all control and I need you now. / And I don't know how I can do without, I just need you now.' (Lady Antebellum, Need You Now)**_

The moment was here, the moment he had always been so sure of, that she had resisted for so long from fear and self-doubt.

"Caroline." His sharp voice calls her back to the solid phone in her hand and the devastatingly delicious voice in her ear.

"Klaus…I think you need to hear my true confession."

She grins when her keen vampire hearing doesn't fail to hear the catch in his breath, though she doesn't need to see his face to imagine his shock at her declaration. "I miss you." A pause, only silence from the big bad hybrid at the other end. "Do you think maybe there's room for me in New Orleans?"

"How soon can you be here?"


End file.
